THE VOICE OF THE DESERT 



206 



End of Creation; as if there were no other end of any 

 creature, but some way or other to be serviceable to man. 

 . . . But though tliis be vulgarly received, yet wise men 

 now-a-days think otherwise. Dr. Moore affirms, that crea- 

 tures are made to enjoy themselves as well as to serve us." 

 The greatest profit which we can get from the observation 

 and study of other living things is, Ray went on to say, 

 often not that we learn how to use them but that we may 

 contemplate through them the wonders and the beauties 

 of God's creation. What Ray was saying is precisely what 

 Thoreau was restating in secularized form when he in- 

 sisted that "this curious world which we inhabit ... is 

 more to be admired and enjoyed than it is to be used." 



Since our age is not inclined to be interested in theo- 

 logical arguments, it is not likely to find Ray's exposi- 

 tion a sufficient reason for accepting gladly the continued 

 existence on this earth of "useless" plants and animals oc- 

 cupying space which man might turn to his own imme- 

 diate profit. Our generation is more likely to make at least 

 certain concessions in that direction as the result of 

 absorbing what the ecologist has to say about the impos- 

 sibility of maintaining a workable balance without a much 

 more generous view of what is "useful" and what is not. 

 But it is not certain that on that basis man will ^ver make 

 quite enough concessions and it is entirely certain that he 

 will not make them happily, will not find life pleasanter 

 just because he makes them, unless he can leam to love 

 and to delight in the variety of nature. 



Perhaps, if we cannot send him as far back as the seven- 

 teenth century to be taught, we can at least send him back 

 to the eighteenth. Pope, speaking half for metaphysics and 

 half for science, could write: 



